The Imperial Japanese Army produced as many as 5.18 million poison gas shells (6.100 tons of poison gas) at facilities between 1931 and 1945 on Okuno Island in Hiroshima Prefecture. Keiichi Tsuneishi, professor at Kanagawa University, obtained a copy of 10 papers from a former Imperial Army officer who now lives in Tokyo and has kept the documents at his home.

(SMN, 05/25/95)

Spokesman of a Japanese government delegation to investigate the Imperial Army's chemical weapons still left in China on Monday confirmed the existence of two chemical weapons sites containing bombs and chemicals abandoned by the Army when it retreated in the last months of the Second World War.

The delegation, composed of various organizations, including the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Defense Agency, and private groups, visited two sites in China's Jilin Province, where the Chinese government gathered and stored large amounts of chemical weapons between 1951 and 1963.

Japanese government has agreed to finance the cleanup of those harmful chemicals.

China and Japan shelved the Diaoyutai issue (1975)
"There is a discrepancy in both views on the issue of the Diaoyutai Islands. Both parties promised not to take up the subject on the occasion of diplomatic normalisation. We have reached the agreement that we will not refer to the issue during the negotiation of the Peace and Friendship Treaty. Some people want to throw cold water over Sino-Japanese relations by bringing up the issue. I think that we had better avoid the issue during negotiations between the two countries. I think thtat we should not be concerned about shelving this kind of probnlem for the moment. Even for ten years, delay could be acceptable. Our generation does not have enough wisdom. The next generation will have much better wisdom. They will work out a solution which everybody can accept." (A record of a press conference by Deng Xiaoping at the Japan National Press Club. Nicyu kankei kihon shiryosyu (Basic Data on Sino-Japanese Relations), (1975), p. 197.